studying the art of fine French cuisine
This dish is from Périgord.
Yes, duck’s liver isn’t exactly a pretty thing to look at. But with clever plating and some shiny peeled grapes, one can almost forget about the whole force-feeding-a-duck-corn ordeal.
Though I really don’t like foie gras, I am really happy with this dish.
January 27th, 2017
This dish is from Aquitaine again, specifically Landes d’Armagnac.
This dish was yet another fun addition to my repertoire. The ends of the duck breast should have be trimmed prior to plating, but c’est la vie. This dish is garnished with crisp potato gaufrettes, orange segments, and duck jus with orange zest julienne.
January 27th, 2017
This dish is from Aquitaine: Bordeaux.
It’s a traditional garlic velouté soup that the French tend to enjoy after a night of drinking, similar to French onion soup.
I also cooked this beef filet with red wine sauce, sautéed mushrooms and potatoes.
Here’s another angle for texture and height perspective:
These are the first dishes I’ve cooked all semester that I truly enjoyed and felt proud of cooking!
January 27th, 2017
This dish is from Poitou-Charentes.
I promise this is what it’s supposed to look like. What is it exactly? Let’s cut into it and I’ll show you:
This is roasted pigeon’s breast, stuffed inside a chicken’s breast, layered with braised cabbage and garnished with a circle of cabbage, peas, green beans, carrots, turnips and zucchini julienne.
The dishes I’m making are getting more bizarre, more difficult, and worst of all, less appetizing. It’s a damn shame when even I wouldn’t eat what I cook.
Though this recipe is actually one of my most difficult challenges, this dish looks like something a kid would make.
January 20th, 2017
This dish is from the Val de Loire as well, in Touraine.
Yep, this is half of a pork tenderloin, stuffed with diced prunes; interspersed with potato hush puppies and “embellished” with stuffed mushrooms and a saucier of jus.
In case you’re wondering, I don’t come up with the plating for dishes. I am instructed to recreate what my chef demonstrates.
Also, here is a traditional French upside-down apple pie I made:
In French, it is called a Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin, or tarte tatin for short.
January 19th, 2017
This dish is from Val de Loire: Anjou.
Soufflés are actually really not that difficult, but cooking them in a dead oven with no window or oven light makes it a game of prayer.
I also made an Anjou-style stewed trout with braised Boston lettuce in this class, but it was honestly just so unappetizing that I didn’t bother taking a nice photograph of it.
Okay yeah, there’s some hand-cut fillets of trout surrounding it on the plate, but smack-dab in the center there is this. This, you see, is an entire head of Boston lettuce, braised down to a sickly-dark green pulp the size of toonie.
In my humble opinion, the soufflé was much more fun to make.
January 19th, 2017
These dishes are from Bretagne.
The cauliflower was alright. I had to remake my mornay sauce for it though and got a lot of flak for it.
I cut the lobster’s head too far back and it ended up splitting in half. My sauce also split due to the excess of oil. The one thing I needed to split – the claws – couldn’t be done because I don’t have much upper body strength.
Classes like this make me think I’m really not cut out for this. Stabbing a lobster in the head made me sick to my stomach. Even worse, this dish came out terribly.
Sigh. Another lobster died for no reason.
January 16th, 2017
This dish is from Normandie.
I also made a fresh pasta with it in the last 10 minutes of class, but chose not to plate it for fear of being late to present.
January 16th, 2016
Not going to lie: I was not happy with my first day back in the kitchen. I don’t like the bitterness of endives, nor did I enjoy the plating of this dish. This is a dish from Le Nord (Flandre, Artois, et Picarde).
Turning potatoes isn’t my favourite thing either, but you gotta do what chef says you gotta do. The squash purée soup, however, was more fun.
I enjoyed making the whipping cream quenelle and toasting the pumpkin seeds for a less-boring texture.
January 16th, 2017
Winter break has come and gone! I really enjoyed my 3 weeks off school. I spent the days leading up to Christmas day with in Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario with my loving relatives.
When I returned to Ottawa, I moved out of my apartment in Vanier and moved into a suite in the bed and breakfast I work at in Sandy hill! Even more exciting, New Year’s Eve in Ottawa was the kickoff of #Ottawa2017. I got to see the torch lighting, flagbearers and fireworks from the very front row at Parliament Hill. It was the best new year’s eve I’ve ever had.
I also visited Montreal over the break. I’m starting to get very comfortable with taking rideshares, staying at Airbnbs, and going on very spontaneous adventures. We took a 2-hour speed tour around the city in a Benz, hitting up Mont Royal Plateau, Saint Viateur bagel cafe, Saint Joseph Oratory, Mt. Royal, Vieux Montreal, the Biodome and Notre-Dame Basilica.
Unfortunately all great things come to an end, and I am back on the grind of school every weekday and work every weekend. Though I already feel like this is going to be a very long semester, I am sure it will be over in a blink.
January 16th, 2017
Once in a bleu moon 